Did you enjoy school?
I loved junior school, hated senior school. Like lots of neurodiverse people I don’t fit in the boxes prescribed by a Victorian education system. It was a hostile environment for me and I didn’t thrive.
What qualifications do you have?
I took an industrial apprentice route for my degree. My aerospace employer supported me keeping my family together as my Mum had just died after I started my apprenticeship. I have a Web Science PhD gained 37 years after my original degree.
Has your career path been a smooth transition, a rocky road or a combination of both?
Rocky the whole time. My path has been a stormy one. I’ve either been in the storm, just exiting the storm or experiencing the turbulence which indicated I was heading into a storm. Aerospace analogies typify my career path.
What specific challenges do you see women facing in the industry?
We are generally, especially in technology, building our careers in a patriarchal profit orientated system. As women, our skills are multi-dimensional which often means we encounter obstacles not faced by our male counterparts. For example I mentioned I started my engineering career as an aerospace apprentice. Winning accolades and prizes as I graduated. But I wasn’t able to take up my role in the aircraft factory on the team that would build the aircraft I had helped to conceive to reduce the noise pollution in our cities. Why? because I was female and the customer was in the Middle East and “a woman leader wouldn’t be appropriate”. I started in the Computing department instead once I had graduated.
What is the best career advice you can give to others?
Risk winning. The effort is always worth it. Why? Because even if you fail you get experience, which brings you one step closer to your goal. Always.
If you had to pick one mentor that had the biggest influence on you, who would it be?
In my first technology role I had the privilege to work with a technologist who had no formal education. He appreciated my enthusiasm, my six years of aerospace knowledge, specifically the engineering discipline I had studied and deployed. He taught me that curiosity was valuable and we became part of the team that introduced software engineering into the aerospace industry. I owe my recognition as one of the Top 10 Global Internet of Things (IoT) innovators to my first mentor, Gordy.
From where do you draw inspiration?
In 2009 I co-founded FlyingBinary to commercialise 25 years of web science research. I have data which explains the impact of IoT technology on our society. We are a web science company which changes the world with DeepTech, Industrial IoT technology. So far we have positively impacted over half of the world’s population. All of our work at FlyingBinary is based on a single mission: Equity, and by that I mean leave no one behind. I’m neurodiverse and visually disabled, not all of us start in the same place but technology is an enabler for all our talents.
As founder of the Empathy Economy we have used DeepTech to support over 10 million businesses in 174 countries to create the world we all want to live in. These entrepreneurs inspire me every day, the youngest is three years old, and is a climate entrepreneur like me.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced to date?
Undoubtedly the work I have done in Ukraine since February 2022. Almost two years in the Russian war challenges the work I do every day to deliver on the equity agenda. Ukraine is not just defending itself, they are defending the survival of our democratic world.
What qualities do you feel makes a good leader?
Courage, confidence, energy and insight are the characteristics a leader needs to risk winning and become a global changemaker. These are the characteristics of the entrepreneurs who Risk Winning in the Empathy Economy every day.
From a work viewpoint, what has the last 12 months been like?
It has been incredible. My work in Ukraine has enabled me to work with some of the best leaders on the planet. I have shared my climate change resources with over a billion people. This is my own personal commitment to deliver climate change. I teach business owners how to become Climate Champions which thanks to my collaboration with LinkedIn is now a professional qualification.
What would you say are the biggest tech-based challenges we face today?
Negotiating the societal impact that Industrial IoT technology brings. There are over 30 billion devices across our planet which are already part of a connected fabric. However digital technology is no preparation for this transition. DeepTech skills are key for Industrial IIoT services, and these skills are in very short supply.
I’m working with my Fortune 500 clients to create transition roadmaps for them to leverage Industrial IoT as a competitive advantage to create a USP for their businesses. Adopting this approach will be the differentiator for those businesses who not just survive the transition to the Industrial IoT, but thrive.
What can be done to encourage more women into the industry?
I’ve been in the technology industry for 39 years and this has been the perennial question since then. Post pandemic the numbers have gotten worse. In December 2016 I founded the Empathy Economy in response to my own concern at working in an industry that affects our entire society and is not representative. I set out to prove that the real problem was a foundational one. My theory based on 25 years of fundamental web science research was that the business models and commercial models technology uses were the real issue.
It is accepted that technology both positively and negatively affects our society. The opportunity to choose the outcome is in the hands of a very few BigTech companies. The Empathy Economy by contrast, uses a collaborative rather than competitive business model coupled with a commercial model which is not driven For Profit only, instead we use a Profit for Purpose commercial model. We are changing outcomes in communities across the world. More importantly a Profit for Purpose commercial model positions technology as an enabler not an outcome. The Sharing Economy which uses a For Profit model by contrast creates technology outcomes which negatively affects our society.
It is important to know that technology is neutral, people are not. In the technology industry using a For Profit approach means it has no interest in creating an equity agenda and therefore will continue to be unrepresentative of our society. When we move the technology industry to be Profit for Purpose there is unlikely to be an issue encouraging women to join.
Give us a fact about you that most other people wouldn’t know.
I’m the co-founder of the modern data journalism industry, which we founded on the mission ‘Facts are sacred’. From the original two of us there are over 7 million in the industry today. Many of our journalists are on the front line in Ukraine today, documenting Russian War Crimes. I have been working in Ukraine since the February 10, 2022, 14 days before the Russian invasion. Arguably the most important work I’ve ever done.
